…And you do need a balanced diet, so get some Soylent Red and Soylent Yellow, too.

You have to wonder why Costco and Wal-Mart (Sam’s Club) would choose to ration rice purchases, rather than let market forces control demand and price. Rationing tends to induce panic buying. This is a bad omen, coming at a time when corn is in short supply because of the demand created by ethanol production.

What’s next ? Sending military advisors to Vietnam, to help the rice paddy farmers ? We’ll call it a “police action”. Maybe they can dust off “Rosie The Riveter” and have her star in a new campaign to eat potatoes, and the government can start issuing rice coupons.

I can see it now… McDonald’s running TV commercials advertising their “Freedom Fries”. Bags of “Patriot Chips” on store shelves. People throwing popcorn at weddings. Boycotts of Chinese restaurants that serve rice. Food manufacturers promoting rice-free products. The price of potatoes quadrupling overnight. Runaway wheat prices. Supermarkets using armored cars to deliver rice to their stores. “Rice lines” at the supermarkets, and “rice riots” in the streets. Soccer moms fighting in the cereal aisle over the last box of Rice Chex. Rice-free Fridays. “Black market” rice. Even/Odd day rice rationing. Flour rationing. Bootlegged rice. $5.00 or $10.00 loaves of bread (which isn’t such a huge jump, since many premium breads now sell for close to $4.00 a loaf). And don’t forget the inevitable Congressional hearings into the rice shortage, with farmers and wholesalers invoking the fifth amendment. Northerners might even discover what Southerners already enjoy, grits. The USO starts an anti-rice campaign, encouraging Americans to send potatoes to servicemen instead, with the catchy phrase… “Send a sack to our boys in Iraq” (inspired by “Send a salami to your boy in the Army” (youtube) …featuring Jerry Lewis at Katz’s Delicatessen, NYC, from “At War With The Army“.) Also see this blogger’s raving about Katz’s Delicatessen, a New York City landmark. (While we’re on the subject of movies and Katz’s Delicatessen, here’s the classic scene from “When Harry Met Sally”, starring Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal. It was also filmed in Katz’s Delicatessen.)

You’re walking down the street, and some guy steps out of a dark alleyway. Pssst… hey bud, youz wants to buy a bag of Basmati, real cheap?